boule · Lit. “council.” The democratic council of 500 men, appointed annually by lot from among citizens aged at least thirty, and with severe restrictions on repeated membership. Its chief function was to prepare the agenda for meetings of the ekklesia, and to undertake certain routine administrative duties, in particular that of co-ordinating the activities of numerous boards of minor officials; but it had also certain independent judicial powers, mainly but not only in cases of limited importance: in some cases of eisangelia, the boule could decide whether to refer the trial to the ekklesia or to a dikasterion.